Life Design

In short

A guided self-reflection journal, applying design principles to life goals

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The first product of a wellbeing movement, Le Conscient: a self-reflection journal.

Following several years of my own grounding journalling practice and many curious conversations about the process of imagining and realising futures for ourselves, I decided to create a book, that is designed to act as an accessible, personal life coach - taking us towards the lives we wish to live, while appreciating that we already have and are. I drafted, tested, iterated and designed a beautiful 200-page self-reflection book, including 100-pages of self-reflection exercises covering 5 areas as of life: self, experiences, lifestyle, connections and contribution.

A response to a need for more accessible, self-reflection tools

After 3 years of a consistent, daily journalling practice, I found writing became quite a central part to my life both as a daily wellbeing practice but also as a means to understand myself, surface my desires and reflect on the opportunities and blockers to realising them. I discovered how transformative self-knowledge was for the decisions I had to make on a daily basis about life and my future. Through casual conversations with friends, I however realised that generally speaking, people not only struggled to realise the desires of their hearts but often had no idea what they were or what was getting in their way. And many people spoke of therapy or coaches as a solution but often faced financial and emotional barriers to accessing them. I knew how much clarity I managed to find on my own through a regular writing practice so I decided to create an accessible, structured self-reflection book to support others do the same.

A design-led yet intuative development process

While the process of creating the book was a rather intuitive, based on my personal experiences, I wanted to apply a design-led approach, to both the creation of the book and the process within the book, to help people solve the challenges that surfaced in the process. The book begins with a self-coaching session to reflect on the different areas of life, that acts as  a diagnostic of where you are and where you wish to be, as well as the blockers that are in the way of reaching that place. The book then guides people to prototype routine, that responds to their desires and helps overcome their challenges. And lastly, involves a weekly reflective practices to assess what's working, what's not working, offering the opportunity to iterate as they go.

In creating the book, I consulted with a group of my target audience: young (20s/30s) people in creative industries or working in an entrepreneurial or freelance manner, receiving feedback along the development of the book about the experience the book provided and how well it supported their self reflection and clarity - for those who are used to thinking this way, but mostly for those who aren't.

Although unpublished physically, the process was resonant & impactful, digitally.

After running into cost challenges, I was unable to self-publish the book in physical form as I had been working towards. However, having shared the digital copy, I received incredible, often unsolicated, feedback about the process and its impact in supporting people to find clarity and focus in their lives. I hope to be able to publish a physical version of the book one day, as, at least for me, nothing beats pen and paper as a means of self-connection.

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